How to (consistently) make positive E-6 transparencies with C-41 chemicals

Cholentpot · Jul 12, 2018

earlz said:
Looks to me like the C-41 color development wasn't long enough. But it could also be how old expired film behaves when done using reversal. Normally with negative processing, you build up a base fog on expired film. But in reversal, this basically turns into the opposite so that everything looks faded and highlights are more likely to go clear. It looks like there is plenty of detail on the images, so I think B/W development was good. However, to compensate for the base fog, you might try a shorter first development time, like maybe 5:30 or 5:00. I'm interested to see what kind of colors you got with the process though. You can't really tell from the grainy cell phone pic. I've not tried this with unpreserved expired film yet (my Ektachrome had been frozen)

Also, does no one here ever mix a new C-41 kit? lol

Nevar!

mshchem · Jul 12, 2018

I have used a potent LED flashlight for the reverse exposure. The light has 5 or 6 LEDs, left it on the Jobo reel gave it about 30 seconds on both sides, with flashlight in direct contact, moving randomly to fog the film. I was processing Provia F in 60 year old chemistry. Results look very similar. I never got to box speed because I didn't raise the temperature of the 1st Developer high enough.

This is Great work, I love this kind of thing. I'm more tempted to try this with cheap color negative film. This could be the next big thing need to try it with cinema film.
Does EK Vision camera or print film make any sense?

Cholentpot · Jul 12, 2018

mshchem said:
I have used a potent LED flashlight for the reverse exposure. The light has 5 or 6 LEDs, left it on the Jobo reel gave it about 30 seconds on both sides, with flashlight in direct contact, moving randomly to fog the film. I was processing Provia F in 60 year old chemistry. Results look very similar. I never got to box speed because I didn't raise the temperature of the 1st Developer high enough.

This is Great work, I love this kind of thing. I'm more tempted to try this with cheap color negative film. This could be the next big thing need to try it with cinema film.
Does EK Vision camera or print film make any sense?

I'll let you know after I dig out some Vision3 stuff from my freezer.

grainyvision · Jul 13, 2018

mshchem said:
I have used a potent LED flashlight for the reverse exposure. The light has 5 or 6 LEDs, left it on the Jobo reel gave it about 30 seconds on both sides, with flashlight in direct contact, moving randomly to fog the film. I was processing Provia F in 60 year old chemistry. Results look very similar. I never got to box speed because I didn't raise the temperature of the 1st Developer high enough.

This is Great work, I love this kind of thing. I'm more tempted to try this with cheap color negative film. This could be the next big thing need to try it with cinema film.
Does EK Vision camera or print film make any sense?

Just tonight I did some Cinestill 50D, which is some ECN-2 film with the remjet removed. Haven't scanned it in yet, but the results look reasonable. I think you lose some speed with this process though and might want to use the film at 25 or 32 ISO or extend first development time when using this. I'm really curious what it's high speed cousin will do, Cinestill 800T (which I believe is Kodak Vision500T) since I've never shot it before even with normal C-41 processing. Also, fun and weird, with the ECN-2 films you can actually see through the film backwards due to missing remjet. The emulsion side of the film will look mostly black, but looking through the back you will see some detail.

Also, did some Superia 200 film that came out looking pretty shitty. I would say it looks over exposed, but in reality it's just that black is not deep at all. I'll have to dig out some normal Superia 200 negatives to see if they look similar for highlights. Also, spoilers, but Portra 400 looks marvelous on the drying string. Using some make shift blueish green light to cancel out the orange mask, the images look somewhat normal. If Portra 400 has a good look, then it'll be an ideal candidate for my super push idea.

Meyer Trioplan · Jul 13, 2018

Scans from my first roll are below - the first just being a raw scan and the second having levels greatly corrected to show the tone.

Overall, not the worst thing in the world, and yes I do look forward to trying this again with a better starting control point similar to what Earlz stated in the original post - I'll thaw my next batch of *FRESH* C41 when I finish a few rolls of color negative within the next two weeks, and I can do glorified clip tests with a roll of Velvia.

grainyvision · Jul 13, 2018

Meyer Trioplan said:
Scans from my first roll are below - the first just being a raw scan and the second having levels greatly corrected to show the tone.

Overall, not the worst thing in the world, and yes I do look forward to trying this again with a better starting control point similar to what Earlz stated in the original post - I'll thaw my next batch of *FRESH* C41 when I finish a few rolls of color negative within the next two weeks, and I can do glorified clip tests with a roll of Velvia.

View attachment 204003 View attachment 204004

Was that some expired Ektachrome?

grainyvision · Jul 13, 2018

Here are scans of Superia 200 and Cinestill 50D:

Superia:

And Cinestill 50D:

Both films are pretty nice as far as grain, but with definite color crossing. The C200 color crossing looks somewhat nice, it adds an interesting palette like a lighter version of the Lomo Purple stuff. It looks awful when over exposed even a bit though. Better aim for under exposure on this one.

Cinestill on the other hand looks awful. Surprisingly, this was the best image I got off of the roll. Last time I used Cinestill 50D it had similar surge mark looking artifacts like this (when processed normally as C-41) and had bad faded colors. I was hoping this process would provide something else, but it's a lot worse with this. The orange mask also is considerably darker and less orange, almost like expired film base fog looking. The biggest problem though is that there seems to be a blue cast over everything, but when you remove the blue cast, there's no blue left in the image and it all looks green. Also, despite Cinestill marketing this stuff as having remjet removed, I have a solid 3 frames with a fair amount of remjet spots. Anyone want my last two rolls of Cinestill 50D?

Conclusion so far for C-41 films:

Don't use Cinestill 50D, it's awful looking
Kodak Gold 400 has fairly high color saturation with only a small amount of color crossing, most normal looking film I've tried so far
Rollei CN200 is bad, it lacks a lot of colors and turns really low contrast and also turns incredibly grainy
Superia 400 is decent saturation and moderate contrast, but a large amount of color crossing. Blue skies tend to turn green and skin tones go to purple
Superia 200 is like a better version of 400. Slightly less saturation and moderate contrast, but significantly less color crossing. Skies will still look a bit green, but not deeply. Also very fine grain in this process
Ektar 100 gets super high contrast and super high saturation with this process. Color crossing is definitely there, but not awful. Tends to tilt toward the blue side of things.

grainyvision · Jul 14, 2018

Scanned in my Portra 160 today that was developed in this process and got some really strange artifacts. It looks like not enough blix, but putting it back into blix didn't fix it. Anyone ever seen something like this? The little dots are not water stains either, it's on the emulsion itself.

With some color correction:

Raw scan:

Zooming in, it doesn't look more grainy like I'd expect under bleaching to look like, but it does stay in the shadows and leaves the highlights alone. Definitely some kind of developing error, but unsure what.

Photo Engineer · Jul 14, 2018

Serious process problems.

PE

fdonadio · Jul 14, 2018

Photo Engineer said:
Serious process problems.

Insufficient first developer is definitely one of them.

grainyvision · Jul 15, 2018

fdonadio said:
Insufficient first developer is definitely one of them.

This occurred only on one part of the roll. It seems maybe the film was touching on the reels. Other rolls in the same tank worked ok, though I think my color developer is ruined now

Cholentpot · Jul 15, 2018

Photo Engineer said:
Serious process problems.

PE

Get a load of Sherlock here...

Just kidding...juuust kidding...Is this driving you 'round the bend PE? Like people putting the wrong fuel in a diesel engine? Or are you looking on in morbid fascination?

Photo Engineer · Jul 15, 2018

Cholentpot said:
Get a load of Sherlock here...

Just kidding...juuust kidding...Is this driving you 'round the bend PE? Like people putting the wrong fuel in a diesel engine? Or are you looking on in morbid fascination?

All of the above!

Thanks for your comment. It does put mine in perspective wrt this thread.

PE

fdonadio · Jul 15, 2018

earlz said:
This occurred only on one part of the roll. It seems maybe the film was touching on the reels. Other rolls in the same tank worked ok, though I think my color developer is ruined now

Now it makes sense. The film definitely touched something.

Cholentpot · Jul 15, 2018

Photo Engineer said:
All of the above!

Thanks for your comment. It does put mine in perspective wrt this thread.

PE

I keep thinking you're standing about 100 yards away from some idiots with fireworks and they keep glancing at you and you just keep saying 'No no, go on...it's ok...' while taking extensive notes.

Photo Engineer · Jul 16, 2018

Yes, yes, go on. Actually, I have seen that happen too. It got pretty messy and the police were involved.

PE

Cholentpot · Jul 16, 2018

Photo Engineer said:
Yes, yes, go on. Actually, I have seen that happen too. It got pretty messy and the police were involved.

PE

The Police were messing with fireworks? Look, Rochester can be pretty brutal, I mean rioting at the flower festivals and stuff...

grainyvision · Jul 16, 2018

Since I'm going through C-41 chemicals much more quickly I've decided to invest in a 5L kit of Fuji chemicals. I continually get under blixing after the first tank or two of using this process. My last rolls had fairly subtle blix problems (just a few dots in some highlights, but otherwise no bad artifacts), but I did the blix for 10 full minutes, and the kit was quite fresh. If I have to spend 15 minutes to assure a good blix, I'm going to be looking to alternatives. I'm hoping that using separate bleach and fix baths will alleviate this some, as well as maybe last until developer exhaustion with no adjustments (since bleach and fix typically lasts longer than developer). I'm also curious if "official" C-41 developer improves the look both in this process, and with normal C-41 color processing. I've heard the dry kits use some substitutes in the developer that match my experience with this process. Works great for the first tank, but afterwards quality rapidly degrades immediately after the first roll developed. Typically people are use to color balancing negatives etc, since you have to... but with this process, the color casts (though easily corrected) are obvious to the bare eye, and so even slight process problems become obvious by looking at the film. I'll be back in 2 weeks from a trip to Europe hopefully with some interesting new results

Photo Engineer · Jul 16, 2018

Cholentpot said:
The Police were messing with fireworks? Look, Rochester can be pretty brutal, I mean rioting at the flower festivals and stuff...

I was a teen in the Pittsburgh area!

As for processing, this cross processing is a mess for films, and using the wrong developing agent is just wrong. A blix does not help either.

PE

Cholentpot · Jul 16, 2018

Photo Engineer said:
I was a teen in the Pittsburgh area!

As for processing, this cross processing is a mess for films, and using the wrong developing agent is just wrong. A blix does not help either.

PE

Father I have sinned.

(Am I doing this right? I'm Jewish...)

grainyvision · Jul 17, 2018

Photo Engineer said:
I was a teen in the Pittsburgh area!

As for processing, this cross processing is a mess for films, and using the wrong developing agent is just wrong. A blix does not help either.

PE

One interesting thing I really wonder is why a new color developer was necessary for E-6, if C-41 seems to process it with minimal cast (as long as the developer is fresh)... or why they used some proprietary first developer instead of something off the shelf. I know the aim is for any lab to produce consistent results, but this could've been accomplished pretty easily if the actual E-6 chemicals didn't exist. The only line of reasoning I see for making a completely new color developer is if the C-41 developed slides have fading issues. Any ideas on how I could even begin to test such a problem?

Either way, I think the X-Pro Reversal process for C-41 films will be of some interest in the whole lomography hipster thing.

Also, my favorite thing is taking people that tell me "oh that'll never work" and proving them wrong I know in my early process that was pretty bad, the people I told it to thought I was nuts.

Photo Engineer · Jul 17, 2018

It will work, but not very well. The new developer was CD4 in C41. The E6 CD remained CD3. They were picked for dye hue and stability. CD4 dyes are better suited to printing C41 films > RA4 and C41 print stock. CD3 dyes are best suited to view by the human eye. In MP films, although they use CD3, the dyes differ from those in E6 films.

Image stability is also an issue.

In addition, the contrast of E6 films is about 3 or thereabouts, and that of C41 is about 0.6. The high contrast is achieved by high solvent levels and high silver and dye former levels along with a strong competer to prevent color crossover. Thus E6 film in a C41 process can give variable, low contrast muddy results with crossover. But, it can be done and will satisfy some for its "artistic" look, and will make others happy because it fits a work flow, an ideal, or they just cannot see the problems.

PE

thuggins · Jul 19, 2018

Photo Engineer said:
In addition, the contrast of E6 films is about 3 or thereabouts, and that of C41 is about 0.6. The high contrast is achieved by high solvent levels and high silver and dye former levels along with a strong competer to prevent color crossover.PE

Hi PE,

Can you clarify whether the "...high contrast is achieved by high solvent levels and high silver and dye former levels..." is in the film or in the developer? The reason I'm curious is that I've cross processed the unmasked Rollei negative film in E-6 chemistry and it turns out very nice. It's no Provia or VS, but it is a perfectly good transparency. In fact, it looks like the Rollei negative and positive films are the same film. I've also cross processed dozens of rolls of XP2 and it makes a beautiful monochrome slide.

While it is obvious that films like Provia, Velvia and VS use(d) dyes that produce more saturated colors, it seems that the only real difference between a negative and positive film is the orange mask.

Photo Engineer · Jul 19, 2018

It is both film and developer in the case of E6. I know nothing about the unmasked Rollei negative, but I do know about the Kodak and Fuji color negative films and reversal films. The E6 films have a lot of dye formers in them, and the excess contrast is beat back in the CD by use of a colorless dye former (I know, I know - colorless dye former?). Anyhow, that causes an increase in sharpness and better color. As I said, color reproduction is going to be crappy with cross processing just due to using the wrong color developing agent let alone the wrong FD and CD in E6 and the wrong CD from C41 in any other process. One of the solvents in the E6 CD is ethylene diamine, and the colorless coupler is citrazinic acid.

Unless you are concerned about having good color, grain and sharpness, then do whatever you want, but if you want them and speed too, use the right process.

PE

grainyvision · Jul 20, 2018

Photo Engineer said:
It is both film and developer in the case of E6. I know nothing about the unmasked Rollei negative, but I do know about the Kodak and Fuji color negative films and reversal films. The E6 films have a lot of dye formers in them, and the excess contrast is beat back in the CD by use of a colorless dye former (I know, I know - colorless dye former?). Anyhow, that causes an increase in sharpness and better color. As I said, color reproduction is going to be crappy with cross processing just due to using the wrong color developing agent let alone the wrong FD and CD in E6 and the wrong CD from C41 in any other process. One of the solvents in the E6 CD is ethylene diamine, and the colorless coupler is citrazinic acid.

Unless you are concerned about having good color, grain and sharpness, then do whatever you want, but if you want them and speed too, use the right process.

PE

About the colorless dye coupler, that's really interesting. Do you think this is why developing E-6 in C-41 CD is not a to-completion process? With C-41 the shadows get more and more blocked up until almost black when extending CD time by a significant amount.

What resources are available to learn about this kind of detail?

How to (consistently) make positive E-6 transparencies with C-41 chemicals

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